


A Question In Need Of Answer

by Merfilly



Category: Pitch Black (2000)
Genre: Abusive Past, Attempted Rape, Gen, Gender Issues, Yuletide, Yuletide 2009
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:59:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack grows up, but how has Jack been shaped?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Question In Need Of Answer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Caro Dee](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Caro+Dee).



Jack saw the prisoner, listened to the story, and saw something different from Johns. Johns saw a monster, a predator with no compassion. Johns saw his future made, riches enough to afford the best in life.

Jack saw strength, an immovable force that need never know fear. Jack saw power incarnate, in the muscles, in the grace, and the self-assurance that Riddick exuded, even bound as he was.

Jack saw freedom from the past, something to shape into, to be so that the past need never hurt again.

All that strength and power preyed on Jack's mind. There was something in Riddick's voice when he outed Jack's gender that left Jack aghast... and yet, he did not condemn her for being a girl. He did not take the view that she was a victim. The showdown with Johns happened so soon after, that it left Jack wondering, once the shock of Johns' death had passed.

Jack would never cry for Johns again, not even in nightmares where Johns begged to die as fast as Riddick had warned them all to pray for. There had been too much in his voice, something hidden, something that fueled her imagination that Johns had died because of Jack.

One day, Jack would ask Riddick. One day, Jack would know that answer.

`~`~`~`~`

Jack could have asked right after saving Riddick's life when they had to fight the mercs. He would have told Jack, because Riddick never really found much reason to lie. Jack wanted to know that the knowledge was earned, though, that Jack had lived up to whatever it was that had made Riddick think of Jack as his own. Jack knew Riddick did, seeing it in the rare moments that he laid his hands on the shaved head, or the way he'd given Jack the shiv that was always carried now.

It had taken Jack a long solar year to see it in the way Riddick dumped Jack on New Mecca with Imam. A long solar year that had seen every curse and imprecation thrown at Riddick's long-gone back passed with Jack completely aware time was running out. Masquerading as a boy only worked so long as biology held out, yet never again would Jack let any boy or man cause pain that way again.

The teachers Jack found were not Riddick. They were adequate, though, building Jack's strength beyond what the slender frame had originally been made for, training Jack's reflexes to a razor-fine precision. Friend nor foe could surprise the fighter, nor did Jack ever strike unwittingly. Jack never forgot that last survivor, the one Shazza almost killed, the one Zeke did shoot, for being incapable of reacting precisely.

By the time biology had done its job on Jack's body, Jack did not need to fear the roving young men with too much time on their hands and not enough faith to stay their inclinations toward an infidel woman.

The first time was a pair. Jack found it entirely to easy to grab the reaching hand, pressure on the nerve in the fleshy part between the thumb and the forefinger. When that man grunted in pain and resisted, his friend moving forward, Jack threw the man into his friend. While they both were trying to sort out who was where, Jack's foot lashed out, a double front kick, one high and one low.

Neither man got up again, and Jack felt freer than in that moment than since Riddick blasted their way off of Hades. That thought brought a glare to Jack's face, before delivering kicks to each of the would-be attackers in passing.

`~`~`~`~`

Jack didn't tell Imam the night a man died on the end of the shiv. Imam didn't need to know it, but it made Jack think. There was only so much room on a civilized planet for a person that had left civility on a ship of killers with one blast of a gun. Somehow, telling the holy man that despite his best intentions, Jack had still grown into a sociopathic killer with no instincts of compassion for anything not belonging to Jack was a bad idea.

Jack knew Imam had certain contacts, though, and made use of them to fake new papers under a different name, shipping out under it and finding work for a ragtag company providing security to a corporate heir.

The right clothes, careful cutting of the hair, and a certain trick of the voice kept most of the others in doubt to Jack's gender. The name was carefully neutral, and anyone who found out the truth...didn't get much chance to brag about it. Jack was ruthless in the pursuit of freedom, which included the elimination of any threat to it.

That was what strength was, power. Jack had learned the lesson in looking at a man with corded muscles, a shaved head, and control despite the bindings he wore. Not just having the physical ability, but the will that went with it. No human convention could ever hold Jack back, and nothing could ever keep Jack from being free.

Even the job was merely a stepping stone, a way to make U.D. and get leads on where Riddick was this time. Even if the bitterness over being dropped had faded, the knowledge of being what Jack was due to Riddick's intersection in Jack's life remained. While Jack wasn't sure how much of the need to find Riddick was adolescent crush and how much was a need to know Jack was good enough, the young fighter was bound to find the murderer and learn.

`~`~`~`~`

Riddick had told Jack once, 'careful what you wish for'. This was proof of that, as Jack felt the razor-fine slice of metal on skin, could smell the tang of copper as the blade parted the upper layer of skin just so. Jack remained very still, not letting any of the muscles respond the inward curses of stupidity and lax guardedness.

"You're supposed to be with the holy man," Riddick rumbled, never once easing the pressure on the knife at Jack's throat. "Why are you out here with the low life and scum of the universe?"

"Because the man I'm hunting is out here too," Jack said, keeping to a steady voice, unwilling to let any of the fear or anger show.

"Think you're tough enough to catch this man you want?" There was a low purr, a rumble of something far more dangerous than just the steel at Jack's throat in that menacing question.

"Who said anything about wanting him?" Jack said with a cold, callous tone. "Means nothing to me, just a cover." The blade tightened just a little, sliding the sting of copper on abraded flesh, before drawing away.

"Look at you." The tone was an implied command to turn around and see the danger in the dark. Jack complied, but with lazy grace and wary guard this time. Dark eyes met silver in the dim light of the musty station corridor.

"Yeah. You do that." Jack's face was hard, ignoring the trickle of blood down the throat, tickling the nerves, filling the air with a scent Jack had learned well. "See what I am, Riddick, and tell me what you see."

Riddick's lips curved in a smile. "Come all this way just to find out what I see when I look at you, Jack?" he asked with a long look up and down Jack's body.

"No. I came to ask you a question." Jack's serious tone brought Riddick's face back up, eyes locking again. "Was Johns' death about me?"

The sociopath with the shining eyes had not actually anticipated that question, that reminder of something so long ago.

"Past is dead and gone, and you're going to cry for Johns now?" Riddick asked in a hard voice.

"Not for him. Never for him. Just wanting to know." Jack never flinched, never showed fear, not to the man that had taught Jack all about power in its most primitive form.

Riddick stood there a moment longer, before turning to walk back down the dark corridor. He paused, ten steps away. "You said you'd keep up," he reminded.

Maybe that was the only answer Jack needed, as the darkness enveloped them both.


End file.
